[Resolved] Site Structure, Categories and SEO

[JOHN]

Hello,

I’m going to start a new site (3rd site with GP!) and it will be focused on ecommerce. Is there an article you can recommend to set up the site correctly?
Specifically, I’m wanting to know about categories and sub categories as it relates to SEO. I have read articles from Yoast and others about user experience and how important this is for SEO ecommerce.

For example, from Yoast:
Especially for ecommerce sites, categories and tags can be more important than your individual pages and posts… Let’s say you sell shoes,categories on your website could include sneakers, loafers and other types of shoes. Surely you want to try and rank on terms like “sneakers” or “loafers” and not just for specific pairs of shoes you sell…most people search for more generic terms and you want to make sure that they are able to find you. In that case, those category archives should be the first result in the search engines; they’re landing pages..

So in setting up a new site would this structure be the best way to begin?
Category: Shoes. Sub categories: Sneakers, loafers, Running shoes,

So my structure should be like this using an example of Adidas Ultraboost shoe:
examplesite.com/shoes/sneakers/adidas/ultraboost

Instead of just creating examplesite.com/addidas-ultraboost.

So basically for SEO it should be: site/category/sub category/brand/product.

The site I’m creating is only going to have 2 categories, 3-4 sub categories, 6-8 brands and 20-30 products.
Any recommendations or articles? I would probably be using Emerald from the site library.

Thanks for your help.

[David]

Hi there,

quick question – is it going to be 20 – 30 products in total ie. across All brands and Categories ?

[JOHN]

Yes, I don’t expect more than 30 products total.

[David]

With a small number of products adding too many categories could add unnecessary complexity for the user.
For example this:

examplesite.com/shoes/sneakers/adidas/ultraboost

The user may first visit the Shop. Here they are displayed a list of Parent Categories, and they choose shoes which takes them to a sub-category where they select sneakers and then another selection of adidas where they now can see the actual ultraboost trainer.

Thats potentially a lot of steps to view what may just be a couple of trainers. As well as a lot of subcategory archives.

Of course those terms can be used in filters to allow users to find an exact match… but with so few products that adds little value.

Personally i would begin with creating just the products.
Without Categories to begin with, as you can always add them later.

Then you can consider what taxonomies make sense to your target audience.
For example, you could have 2 main parent categories eg. Walking Shoes and Running Shoes
And a simple silo page for each with supporting SEO meta / descriptions followed by your list of the relevant products.

If in the future you increase the number of products and more tax terms would be a benefit, then you can always add them.
But if you add them to start with and realise you don’t need them later, then removing those tax terms would result in lots of broken links that require redirecting.

[JOHN]

Thank you for adding clarity to this! It does make sense how you explained that with a small number of products, users can get to the item they are interested in in just 1-2 clicks and not 3-4 clicks.

Thanks for your help.

[David]

You’re welcome !

[Author]

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